I'm a huge fan of Jigsaw and it serves as my go-to-tool for company or people search. The one thing I hear from people who are getting started with Jigsaw is "how do I build up my points?" For those unfamiliar with the Jigsaw point system, Jigsaw offers free as well paid subscription plans. The paid plans range from $250 to $5000 per year which give you 250-1500+ contacts with a $1.00 cost for additional ones. The free plan only allows for a pay per contact of $5.  The beauty of Jigsaw, however,  is in their point system. Users are actually rewarded for providing updated contact and company information in the form of points which basically equate to 1 point = $1 in Jigsaw money.  There are a number of ways to earn points and I thought I would offer some of my favorites.

Mail in your pile of business cards and earn Jigsaw points using Shoeboxed

What is Shoeboxed?

Shoeboxed is a mail-in service that makes it easy to digitize and organize your business cards and earn Jigsaw points. Simply use postage-paid Shoeboxed envelopes to mail in your pile of business cards. (You can also submit business card images from any mobile device!) Shoeboxed will scan the cards, extract and verify the data, and export your contacts directly into Jigsaw.

Shoeboxed with Jigsaw

• Register for a Shoeboxed account (Jigsaw users save $10 on all Shoeboxed annual plans!)
• Send in your pile of business cards
• In the "Business Cards" tab of Shoeboxed, choose the "Export to Jigsaw" option. You will be prompted to enter your Jigsaw account information.

Once your contacts have been uploaded into Jigsaw, you will earn points for each new and complete business Contact that you provide. Exchange your current Contacts for Contacts you need. The more you contribute, the more you will earn.

Add dozens or hundreds of contacts into Jigsaw in only minutes

Copy2Contact instantly captures contacts and companies into Jigsaw in one click.

With Copy2Contact you can grab company and contact data from anywhere—Web pages, email signatures, Outlook, Excel and more-all without errors of retyping.

The Copy2Contact Download is FREE* to use with Jigsaw and takes just seconds to install.

* Copy2Contact adds contacts to Jigsaw for free, forever. Copy2Contact requires paid registration after a 14 day trial if you also want to send contacts to Outlook, Salesforce.com, Palm Desktop, or NetSuite.

Add Many Companies at Once

Company ONLY files can still be submitted to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it with "Add My Companies" in the subject line.

You'll get all the same benefits (points, royalties) plus the same rules apply (rating hits for bad data, etc.)

Here's how to submit your file:

1. Make sure your data is in a .txt or .CSV file format. To get you started, you can download a sample company CSV file.
2. Check that your data is complete and meets our data requirements (see below)
3. Send an email to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it with "Add My Companies" in the subject line. Please make sure to include your Jigsaw username.

After your data is added, you'll receive an email from our support team letting you know how many points you received and that your upload is complete.

Upload Contacts

Export a CSV or Excel file (Comma Separated Values) from the program that contains your contacts.

Your Jigsaw account will be credited five points for every complete contact and 1 point for every 20 rows of
partial data.

Keep Jigsaw's Data Fresh & Be Rewarded

Information can change at breakneck speeds. Come across outdated or incorrect information? Update contacts or companies and earn points redeemable for information to land your next deal!

Refer others and earn

This is the easiest way of all. For each new person you refer to Jigsaw that signs up you get 125 points. With that said, if you're not already a member, today's a great to get started:) http://www.jigsaw.com/join/webvision

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